I've seen the posts regarding the sale of items and collection of funds, and have remained silent on this subject till now as I wanted to see what the thoughts of everyone esle was. I've thought about it quite a bit and thought I'd share some of my thoughts on it now....

First, it appears unlikely we'll be able to keep Kale in the top ten. Just checking the site in the last half hour, I've noticed some big changes in the votes for some of the more, shall we say subjective, designs. I suspect there are things going on with the voting that would not stand up to our moral standards, but so be it. I kind of expected this from the beginning.

Second, without keeping his design in the top ten, he has no chance of receiving even one of the first prizes (though I noticed a discrepancy in their rules in that they award a grand prize, and then 10 first prizes from the top ten, which implys the grand prize winner will also get a first prize.... anyway...).

Third, Brian, you are absolutely correct that he has no chance of competing with kids from schools like Nashua NH, Westborough, MA, Bellevue, NE (Bellevue, NE? 578 votes? Where the heck is Bellevue, NE?? Oh, it's a suburb of Omaha. That makes sense.) and the other large city schools. That's why I promoted this to the masses of the bus community.

So, today, I did a quick check online and found that TI-84 Silver Edition calculators (which is what the first prizes are) sell for between $100 and $130 online.

What I thought I'd propose is the following. If you guys would like to set up the sale table and collect money for this project, that's great, and anyone who would like to contribute can do so also. Since I started this, I'll take the responsibility of handling the funds and purchasing and delivery of whatever we end up getting. For those who would like to contribute, funds can be sent to me. Contact me directly via email and I'll send an address. If someone wants to educate on receiving funds via paypal (funny how I've only used it to send money, not receive it), I'll make that available as well.

Then, I'll contact the school and talk to the principal and math teacher, and find out exactly what calculators they use in the school, in case they already have a baseline established (my daughter's math class specifically requested we buy a certain TI calculator). If they have no preference, we'll go for the TI-84 Silver. I suggest we try to get enough money to purchase at least one calculator for Kale, and if there's extra money, we us that money to buy more of the same to be donated to the school, or donate the remainder of the money to the school to be used in the math classroom. I expect I can convince the principal to make a presentation to Kale and keep the annonimity. Maybe we can have him present it from "a bunch of nuts".

Now, if anyone has access to purchasing these calculators at reduced prices, knows someone who knows someone who as access, etc, please let me know. In the meantime, I'll start looking around for some local prices, too, and get a better idea of online prices, etc and will update this thread as I find out more.

Also, wouldn't it be cool if we could find someone who could take Kale's design and put it on a calculator cover? Anyone do silk screening? Anyone at all?

A couple things I've learned since becoming involved with busnuts... first, you guys are very resourceful and second, you have good hearts.

Now, if anyone has access to purchasing these calculators at reduced prices, knows someone who knows someone who as access, etc, please let me know. In the meantime, I'll start looking around for some local prices, too, and get a better idea of online prices, etc and will update this thread as I find out more.craig

Craig, I used to know a guy who'd take orders for stuff and low and behold he'd get it at super bargain prices, I don't know how, or where he'd get this stuff but it was always well below market value. But I heard he had some legal troubles and ended up in prison and wont be of any help to us on this one! LOL! BK

I am going to set up a table that is just for Kyle and I'll be puting stuff on it that will be for sale to whoever wants it. There will be no prices, no refunds and no recrimminations. This is for Kyle and his school.

Craig, geting cash from Paypal is pretty simple if you already have an account. If you have a personal account (rather than a biz. one), those that send you cash have to have their accounts tied to bank accounts rather than credit cards. Most Paypal users do. Paypal charges a fee for each transaction, so everyone should know that part of their donation will be used to cover these fees (so YOU don't have to) . Once you get Kale's Kash collected, Paypal can either cut you a check (for more $) or wire the $ to your account (free). Then you go buy some cool stuff for the guy.

You can check with MAK and see if they'll let you set up a Donate button on this thread. It's just a little bit of code that you get from Paypal's site that you embed as an image. I could host and set up a Webpage if it's not do-able here, for whatever reason. Be happy to do it. You'll likely have an overwhelming respon$e for Kale if we can do a donate button.

Money orders and checks mailed to you are great, but a lot of folks like the convienence of Paypal. Some folks have a philosophical problem with Paypal, also, and that's fine. The point is, to find a few ways to help out this cool kid in WY, and that's what we're doing here. You never know what he might accomplish with just these little "random acts of kindness".

SHort of silk screen, but still cool, there is a company called "Skin It" www.skinit.com that makes custom covers out of the same stuff they use to wrap busses, cars etc. They have most cellphones and stuff like that but they also take suggestions on other devices to create templates for.

The project has officially been kicked off (I think I'll refer to it as a project. Seems like a project to me. Feels like a project. So, now it's a project. ).

I received an email from one of the great busnuts on this board pledging $20 towards it. I thnk he's putting up a challenge.

Brian, I like the idea of the donate button. I'll leave that up to the moderators. If they want to do it maybe you can help them with the technical issues since I'm not familiar with it. You or they can contact me if they need a the paypal account info.

I'll keep a tally of the funds, and will continue to post to this thread as it progresses.

OK, after playing around with it, I can already tell that the coding of this BBS software won't really allow a button image in this thread to be clicked (unless I'm totally missing something). But I can go ahead and host a page with the button on it. I'm going to get Craig's Paypal account linked to it... AND ask the moderators for permission to link to the "button page" here in this thread (or in a new one).

I'll keep you posted on what the moderators say about the linking. Until then, here's a non-clickable image of the Donate button I just made...

BTW, the first donation was posted to my paypal account this morning. I had to set up a new account under my standard email craig@gumpydog.com. For some reason he couldn't get my original account to accept it. Also, it appears there's not way to transfer the Paypal balance to my credit card, so I'm linking a seldom used credit union checking account to paypal and will be able to move the funds where they need to be to eventually purchase the calculator(s).

I plan on calling the school on Monday to get things going there. if the donation button is available then, I'll pass the link along to them in case they wish to contribute.

OK, after playing around with it, I can already tell that the coding of this BBS software won't really allow a button image in this thread to be clicked (unless I'm totally missing something). But I can go ahead and host a page with the button on it. I'm going to get Craig's Paypal account linked to it... AND ask the moderators for permission to link to the "button page" here in this thread (or in a new one).

I'll keep you posted on what the moderators say about the linking. Until then, here's a non-clickable image of the Donate button I just made...

My hope is to be able to provide a few of these same calculators to the math classroom, along witha single calculator specifically for Kale.

I've not heard from anyone regarding silk screening his design on to covers. I looked at the skin idea, but they don't currently support the calculators, and I couldn't tell if they could accomodate your design, or if you were limited to only what they offer.